i think the problem is the AI that is running so much stuff everywhere overwhelms the game engine and its my personal belief that the specs are for what it takes to make the game start up and run but they never measured what it takes when you have a screen full of AI activity going on all at once.

i tell people look at the specs and double the ram and video specs and thats what i see as what you need to run sh4 comfortably on high settings.

i dont think the cpu is ever a really big concern because they always tailor it to the average size cpu in systems when the game is made so we all meet that spec

ubi isnt alone in underestimating the "true" requirements, most games do so it increases sales and even those who cant run it well are happy they can run it at all in most cases.

people found out their computers can run crysis a lot easier than they run sh4 but crysis was the big complaint about "oooh i need a better computer to run the game".

sh4 is unique in the intense amount of things all going on at once so i dont call it a neglect or flaw but more of they did so much that it came to cause issues so rather than not finishing the game i think it was a case of doing too much with too little resources and not enough time to refine the problems.

the UBM v1.5 ad-on made some corrections and improvements that make the game less demanding and run better and load faster so the guys making the game were trying to give us a better product but management often overules them (thats good enough, put it on the market)

Aye, I see where you're coming from.

Didn't want to sound like I was moaning, I'm just feeling a bit frustrated at the fact that I've tried everything and it still wont work.

Okay, it works with the older drivers, but that's not really a solution because then other games refuse to run.

So far with the new drivers it goes like this:
The game loads
The museum runs
I can start a patrol
I can't do the training missions
I can't start a quick mission.

how much system ram do you have?

I have 2GB of system ram as I've said on lots of previous posts above.

It's not a case of the game won't run or it's due to lack of memory, it's a case of it won't run with the newer drivers.

CORRECTION: it won't run the training missions or quick missions on the new drivers, but it will run a patrol and the museum.

Runs 100% on the 171.xx drivers (by this I mean that it loads the menus, all missions, museum. I've even gone on a patrol and encountered enemy convoys and come back to base. In fact it runs just as smoothly as SH3), but won't run any higher than that for some odd reason.

None of what I've seen tells me that my PC is incapable of running the game or that it won't run because I'm too low spec. It runs fine... On old drivers.

I've got a feeling that if I can figure out why the wmv files will play in Windows Media Player but not in Windows Movie Maker or as the intro to this game, I might find the solution to why the game keeps resetting on drivers above 171.xx

sorry, i lost track of that in all this


this is the part i keep finding very strange and doesnt make sense :06:

you eliminate the game from being the possible problem by completely uninstalling it, deleting any remaining game files from your programs directory then do a fresh reinstall.

that will eliminate it from being anything game related and now you know its video driver or computer software related

try and read these for possible driver cleanup ideas:

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion...hp?t70830.html

http://www.driverheaven.net/windows-...ompletely.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24...nvidia-drivers

http://www.overclock.net/faqs/12466-...ing-guide.html


i am all out of ideas on this one so maybe someone at tech power up can figure it out.

I'm totally lost myself. I've been a PC gamer for almost 20 years now and I've never come across anything like this in my life. Usually a game that is incompatible with a system just doesn't work at all, but this one works on some things (such as the patrol and museum) but doesn't work on others (the quick missions and training).

Using older drivers I can run the game quite high, no crashes and just as smoothly as SH3. The fact that I can get it to run on older drivers indicates that the game will work. I just need to figure out why it doesn't work with new drivers and why the wmv files are corrupted in everything except windows media player.

I'm actually wondering if I've somehow got a corrupted version of the game (or if the codecs that installed with it are corrupted in some way resulting in the messed up videos). It's the budget release by Focus not the original version.

I've never tried to uninstall codecs before. Any ideas?

the codecs that come with the game will uninstall with the game so thats easy, just be sure to go delete any leftover files before reinstalling.

as for the new drivers its the chips that are used on them, some cards are identical except they use a different chip and some of those chips just arent compatable with some of the new driver settings.

when i had a 7600 card i "HAD TO" use the driver numbered 94 something and no other driver worked right because of the chip version used on my card.

even though they had newer drivers that were supposed to work on my card they were designed for a newer version chip that wasnt on my card because it was an early version 7600 and i suspect you may have a simular thing happening.

your voltage problem could have corrupted anything you downloaded or installed during that time so dont dissmiss anything along those lines no matter how unlikely it seams.

one of those links mentioned that driver #94 something issue as well so see if you can get that exact driver to try.

i dont think you have anything broken, just a driver issue but those video problems make me wonder if all this could be a windows corruption issue from a virus.

I did a fresh install of windows on wednesday night. I bought the game tuesday and had these problems, so I figured that a format and reinstalling windows was a sure way of fixing the problems. However you can imagine my frustration when I installed SH4 and the intro video froze with a green screen. I bypassed the vids by deleting them and the game ran on the old drivers. I updated the drivers to the newer ones and it would only work on the museum and patrol.

are you sure you got ALL the other drivers installed?

chipset drivers can effect how thw AGP bus works sometimes


so its worth double checking the motherboard drivers

i cant think of anything you didnt do already, its supposed to work dammit :damn:

the only possability that comes to mind is if you bought the download version of the game while you had low voltage issues and some data was corrupted in the download process

I think you may be onto something with the chipset drivers.

I came to the same idea while I was sending a message to someone on here who's been trying to help me find a solution, and I've just downloaded and installed the VIA Hyperion 4-in-1 drivers. They contain a new AGP driver for my motherboard. I'd not updated them for some time prior to the reformat and I'd forgotten all about them when I reinstalled windows.

I tried Silent Hunter 3 and the intro and logo videos worked 100%. No green screen, no freeze. Windows Movie Maker is working again as well. I'm in the process of reinstalling Silent Hunter 4 from scratch and I'll give it a try.

The reason I forgot about them is because I've not been really active on PC gaming for a while and nobody ever reminds you to update your VIA Hyperion drivers. Sure, if something goes wrong with you PC, you get people saying to update the soundcard drivers and the graphics card drivers, they're things you hear about all the time. I've never heard anyone on any tech forums mention VIA chipset drivers.

Lets hope that the problem is solved!

*edit*

Videos and intros now work fine. SH4 still resets the PC. I'm actually pretty close to just binning the game at this point and giving up.

*edit*

I decided that now I've installed the VIA drivers I'd uninstall and reinstall the nVidia drivers as well. The game will now load the training missions and I can change stations, navigate, fire guns, but as soon as I press 'esc' to goto the menu, it still resets. I seem to be getting closer, but it's still not right.

One thing I have noticed is the patches don't seem to be installing to SH4. I run the Upgrade Launcher and they download. But when it asks if I want to run it, I click yes and it just goes back to the desktop.

When i re-installed my steam version i had trouble getting it to work, seemed that i had to make sure every single folder related to the game was deleted.. also that JGSME mod utility had to go.
Re-installing the game and uboat expansion at the same time messed it up also!
Had do do them one at a time, then reinstall the JGSME if your going to add a mod...and test without first.

Seems you are losing alot of quality time on this..but you have gone so far so keep at it :yep:
You`ll forever wonder what the problem is till it`s fixed.

Well at the moment the game will load and I managed to upgrade to 1.4. I can start patrols, goto the museum, do the training missions, start a quick mission. When in a mission or a partol everything works, guns, navigation, sonar... The lot.

BUT

If in a mission or patrol I decide to open the main menu, it resets. :damn:

I'm 1,000,000% sure now that I've got every driver for my sound, graphics and chipset, so I dunno what to do next.

So your trying to get to the menu so you can save but it doesn`t like that?
What happens if you go via the button in the control room (above the captains log i think)?

Only other thing might be a firewall wants allowing something related..might as well try since ideas are running abit thin.:hmmm:

I'll try that and let you know. I've just found an updated sound driver that I didn't previously have. Creatives website is a nightmare for older cards, and why does it always tell you things like Creative Mediasource Organiser and WaveStudio 7 are "critical" updates but drivers are stuffed down at the bottom of the list?

I've a feeling this is going to be one of those miniscule settings hidden away somewhere that you wouldn't normally think of as being a problem.

More than likely and you`ll end up kicking yourself.
Another thing would be to check your settings for the monitor & resolution match up and try with low eyecandy first to see if that is the cause.